


New Year

by feroxargentea



Category: Master and Commander - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-31
Updated: 2010-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-14 10:05:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/148101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feroxargentea/pseuds/feroxargentea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A tiny ficlet for perfect_duet. Warnings: very silly, and not entirely suitable for work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Year

Jack Aubrey lounged back against the mainmast, admiring the vast spread of white sails. “Another year gone, then. Farewell, 1813.”

“Deduct six, carry the two,” muttered Stephen Maturin, who was crouched on a bolt of canvas at Jack’s feet, scrawling figures onto the planks of the maintop. “Oh, the Devil take it. I do not set up for a mathematician, Jack, and you may say that I have not the best head for figures…”

“I might say you had not the best figure, either,” thought Jack disloyally, but aloud he said only, “Not at all, Doctor, not at all.”

“… but however much I rework the calculation, the New Year we have sailed into appears to be 1813 again.” Stephen tried to stick his quill behind his ear, got it tangled up in his wig, and ended by casting both pen and wig across the maintop with a grunt of exasperation.

“It is remarkable, and I can hardly fathom it, but my reckoning and those of the master and of Dick Richards are in exact agreement.” And Jack smiled at Stephen’s ink-spattered scowl.

“Sure I can hardly credit it.”

“Yet 1813 it is, and therefore time to open the secret Admiralty orders.” He sat down between Stephen’s bony knees and drew a package from his bosom, wrapped in oiled silk and sealed with wax.

“You had instructions to open those today, I collect?”

“Why, do you not see the superscription, Stephen?” He pointed to the label: ‘Not to be opened until New Year’s Day 1813’, and unwrapped the package, leaning back against Stephen’s chest while he scanned the enclosed orders.

“Would it be impolitic to ask their import, now?”

“Not at all. We are requested and required to rendezvous with the HMS Perfect Duet without delay and to provide Captain Esteven with a surprise.”

“A Surprise? Which Surprise? I am not to be teaching you your business, brother, but we are lamentably short of hands already.”

“Not a seaman, Stephen, a surprise with a small ‘s’. And might I point out, Doctor, that you do not – ah! – appear to be short of hands. Take them out of my shirt before – ohh – before Richards sees us from the crosstrees.”

“Nonsense, joy,” Stephen murmured against his neck. “There is half a mile of canvas between us and him.”

“And we must think of a suitable surprise for Perfect Duet, and how the deuce am I to think with someone nibbling on my ear?”

“The remains of your ear, the part I sewed back on, and no more than a scrap it is.”

“Mmmm.”

Stephen slid his hands lower, and nothing more of sense was said for the rest of the watch.

***

The Surprises did their very best to find a suitable surprise.

Harper tried to teach his parrot Poll to whistle ‘Silent Night’, but the Captain, hearing the results and mistaking it for the Marseillaise, banished both midshipman and bird to the masthead without their dinner.

Blakeney tried to draw a suitable picture, but although his loyal berthmates pronounced it ‘very fine, very fine indeed, for a right-handed young gentleman who was missing his right arm’, somehow it wasn’t quite the thing either.

Finally Mowett undertook to write a celebratory poem with Pullings’ help, but Babbington interrupted so often with bawdy suggestions that eventually Mowett and Pullings retired to the latter’s cabin, whence came excited mutterings, a certain amount of low laughter, some suspiciously heavy breathing, and no poem.

***

Captain Aubrey returned to his sleeping cabin with a sigh, dropping an absent kiss into Stephen’s untidy hair. “No surprise, and I fear we have missed our rendezvous.”

“Never fret, my dear. There will be plenty of other times, will there not?” He leant back against the bulwark and pulled Jack to him, stripping off his shirt and breeches with practised hands. “Did you bar the door against Killick?”

“Mmm… Yes.” Jack dipped his mouth to Stephen’s collarbone and then lower, leaving a trail of kisses down his chest, until another thought struck him and he leant back. “Yes, another time will do just as well. After all…”

Stephen wound his hands into Jack’s hair and pulled him close again, finishing the thought for him. “After all – ahhh, there, Jack – after all, 1813 isn’t going anywhere.”


End file.
